


When I'm Braver

by LynyrdLionheart



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 02:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18228614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynyrdLionheart/pseuds/LynyrdLionheart
Summary: In a post S4 time, Julia and Margo get the chance to talk to their boys about why they’re so damn awkward around each other.





	When I'm Braver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OfTheDirewolves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfTheDirewolves/gifts).



> I just finished binging all of The Magicians. I am running love for Queliot and Julia Wicker, who is the best damn thing ever. This take place in a potential post-S4 where Julia has regained her Goddess powers and the day was won with The Power of Love (tm) because sometimes you just gotta go with it.

              “So, are you going to tell me what’s up with you?”

              Quentin lowered his book and stared at Julia as she leaned against the door frame to his room.  It shouldn’t surprise her, that it was one of the Fillory books.  Even after all they had found out, after actually _going_ to Fillory, he still managed to find his escape in the pages. 

              He probably wouldn’t be Q anymore, if that changed.

              “Nothing,” he said as Julia closed the door behind her to prevent any potential eavesdropping and dropped onto the bed next to him.  “There’s nothing up with me at all.  Why… did you, _see_ , that something was up with me?”

              Julia rolled her eyes and grabbed a pillow, swinging it so that he got a face full of fluff.

              “Really, Q?  I don’t exactly need to be a Goddess to see that you’ve been avoiding Eliot ever since we got him back.” She pulled the pillow back, nestled her head into it, and prepared to get comfortable.  “But if it will make you talk, then fine.  Yes, my Goddess powers told me that you are super awkward around the best friend you literally _died_ for.  Because I needed them to notice that the two of you weren’t talking.”

              “I mean, I _didn’t_ die exactly-” Quentin began to argue, and Julia couldn’t stop the scoff that escaped her.

              “You died, Q.  I held you in my arms.  I cried.  _Margo_ cried.  She’s never going to forgive you for that, by the way.  It was only the magical power of love that brought you back.  _Eliot’s_ love.  And now you’re avoiding him.”

              Quentin didn’t say anything at first.  He just wiggled, settling himself more comfortably so they were shoulder to shoulder and could both stare up at the roof.  Julia just waited patiently.  How many times had they done exactly this over the years?

              _How many more times will we get to do this before he’s dead?_

She didn’t want to think about an inevitable future when Quentin was dead, and she was still… there.  She would much rather think about Quentin’s tumultuous love life.

              They were much happier thoughts.

              “So… we lived a lifetime, Jules. El and I.  I got married and had a son, but in the end it was him and me.  It was always him and me and… _I wanted it_.  When we remembered, I wanted it.  So fucking much.  And Eliot… didn’t.”

              Julia furrowed her brow at the certainty in Quentin’s statement.  There was a grief in his words, in his tone, that was far older than their twenty-four odd years.  She turned her head to the side.  He wasn’t crying, like she thought he might.  But he looked so incredibly sad.

              Had she ever seen Quentin look that sad before?  She didn’t think so.

              “Q… When Eliot saw your body?  That’s not the reaction of someone that doesn’t care,” Julia said after a moment.  Eliot had seemed to fall into himself in grief.  The joy of having control over his own body replaced within an instant with bone crushing distress.  “He begged me to do something, you know.  To bring The Monster back, if it would bring you back, too.  You’re both kind of single-minded in the pursuit of keeping each other safe.”

              “He loves me, Jules.  But he doesn’t _love_ me, if you catch my drift.”

              “His love was strong enough to let me literally bring you back to life.  I’m pretty sure it’s the whole thing.”

              “Maybe it was the supreme power of friendship, then.”

              He sounded resigned, and kind of bitter, and Julia rolled over to her stomach so she could look down at him.  He was wallowing.  She knew what he looked like when he was wallowing, and this was a full-fledged wallow that was happening.

              She poked his ribs.

              “Jesus Christ, Jules!” he barked, recoiling from her.  He grabbed the pillow under his head, and held it protectively around his ribs.  “If you were trying to help me, you’re failing.”

              “Well, you’re being an idiot.  It doesn’t deserve a serious response.”

              “You don’t get it Julia.” He turned onto his side to look at her.  “I put myself out there.  I laid it all on the line.  And Eliot told me that if he had a choice, he wouldn’t pick me.”

              Well… that was… unnecessarily cruel.  And the thing was? Julia wouldn’t pretend to know Eliot that well, but the man that had come to a relative stranger who had actively betrayed him, and asked if she was okay, and tossed her a lifeline when she was at her lowest point?  That man wasn’t cruel.  Not to Q.

              Not when he had been so clearly devastated by losing him.

              “He said that?” she asked at last.  “Those exact words?”

              “I can’t quote him word for word, Jules.  But I got the gist.”

              He curled around the pillow, burying his nose in it, and Jules felt her lips tighten.  She couldn’t really believe that was how it went down… but humans could be dumb.  They could be so damn dumb.

              So if it was true?  Julia was going to kick Eliot’s ass.

\---

              “Hey, asshole, wake up!”

              Eliot groaned and covered his eyes as the room was suddenly filled with light that was far too bright.  His felt heavy and his mouth tasted awful, which brought back vague memories of the night before, and a bottle of whiskey that he’d smuggled up to his room under the pretense of needing some him time.

              It was stupid.  He’d had entirely too much _him_ time.  Now the last thing he wanted was to be left alone with the demons in his mind. 

              The problem with choosing to be aware while trapped by The Monster?  When he came back, it was complete with memories of the all the terrible things his body had done.  Even now… he was pretty sure that it had been a spell The Monster had used to slit all those throats.  Eliot was pretty sure he could still do it. He almost had, to Alice – as if his body remembered the motions, and the emotions that had usually come with it when he was possessed.

              It terrified Eliot, to think that in a moment of anger he could hurt the people that had fought so relentlessly to save him.

              “El, are you listening to me?”

              Eliot snapped back out of his thoughts.  Ah, yes.  The light, and whoever had caused it.

              Margo.  Opening his blinds.

              He groaned, and tried to bury himself under his comforter.  A second later, it was torn back, because Margo didn’t tolerate weak bullshit. 

              Why had he chosen whiskey of all things?  He didn’t even really like whiskey that much.  It reminded him of Indiana, and the last thing he ever wanted was to remember anything about Indiana. 

              “Bambi, you’re interrupting my beauty sleep,” he said, trying his best to summon up the easiness that had always come so easily between them.  This was his Bambi, after all.  He knew how to deal with her.  “You know that I need it or I look terrible.”

              “That’s some ridiculous _bullshit_!” she spat, and Eliot winced, not looking at her. 

              He couldn’t look her in the eye.  If Margo got a good look at him, she would know he was drowning.  And they’d been through too much for her to ignore it like she might have once.

              “Look, we don’t do emotion.  We suck at it. Always have, it’s why I love you so much.” The bed dipped next to him, and he glanced out of the corner of his eye, to see that she had sat down next to him.  “But what the hell is up with you and Q, Eliot?  He died for you.  You managed to single-handedly give a _Goddess_ enough power to bring him back.  And now you two idiots are avoiding each other.”

              “He would have died for any of us, Bambi.  Remember how single-minded he was over Alice?  It was typical Q behavior.  Nothing to get worked up over.”

              “Yeah, well… typical Q behavior or not, it’s not typical _Eliot_ behavior.”

              _Know that when I’m braver, it’s ‘cause I learned it from you._

It had been so easy to say that to a memory of Quentin.  To press their lips together and imagine they lived in a timeline where Eliot hadn’t fucked everything up so spectacularly.  But they lived in the timeline where he had never quite stopped being a mess, and self-sabotage was the name of the game.

              “El, be real with me.  Are you in love with him?”

              He rolled over, so his back was to Margo.  He couldn’t do this.  He wasn’t _ready_ yet. 

              Because Quentin had died for him.  And Quentin had loved him.  And Eliot wanted that more than he had ever wanted anything, but he didn’t know if love was still on the table.  How did you ask someone that?  For a second chance?

              It’s not like he could promise that he wouldn’t fuck up again with any sort of certainty.  Fucking up was his specialty, after all.

              “Eliot, it’s me.” Margo wrapped an arm around him, and rested her chin on his shoulder.  “I walked through a desert for you.  I licked a _lizard_ for you.  I’m willing to do… this for you, too.”

              “This?” Eliot asked, the first stirrings of amusement making him feel a bit lighter for the first time since Quentin hadn’t really been dead and he’d been so relieved that he had held him and held him and refused to let go until they woke up the next morning and both remembered that Eliot was the idiot that had rejected him.  Awkwardness had prevailed ever since. 

              “Emotions.  The feeling thing.  Whatever the fuck you need to stop drinking whiskey that you don’t even like until it knocks you out.” She squeezed him a little tighter, and Eliot reached up to squeeze her hand back.  “I can’t do this again, Eliot.”

              Only those words could have made him talk.  Because Margo would never admit to not being able to do something, not unless she was already falling apart.

              “I turned him down,” Eliot said at last.  “I lived an entire lifetime with him.  We had a son.  I _loved_ him, and we worked… and when he wanted to do it again, I said that it wasn’t me.”

              “Oh,” Margo hummed thoughtfully.  “Okay. That’s…”

              “My worst memory.  And I’m not saying that to be dramatic, I have actual proof of that.  An entire shitty childhood to choose from, and in the end the only way for me to let you all know I was alive in here was by facing down that memory.  Rejecting him.”

              “Shit, Eliot.  You’re in love with him.”

              “Yeah, well, love is terrible. Whoever created it can have it back.”

              “Or you could tell him you were a stupid shit.  Because you seem to forget that when Q went vagina to the wall for Alice, it was because he was in love with her.  He did the same for you, El.  That should tell you something.”

              Eliot shrugged, but relaxed into Margo’s hold when she wrapped herself tighter around him.  The contact felt so nice.  The company felt nice.  With Margo there, he could focus on the way she held him tight, instead of remembering everything The Monster had done and…

              “Eliot, open up!”

              Both of them jolted up at the banging on his door.

              “I know you’re in there, so don’t try and hide!”

              “Do you think it’s because she’s a Goddess?” Margo hissed, because that was definitely Julia banging on his door in a way no one had since he was a kid and his parents had found that single gay porn he’d managed to smuggle in. 

              “It’s not because I’m a Goddess!” Julia added, and Eliot clutched at Margo, because the fuck?  “Josh told me Margo had come here to talk to you.  So either open the door, or I’m just coming in.”

              True to her word, after another beat of silence the door slammed open, ricocheting off the wall.  Julia had to reach out and prevent it from hitting her again, looking at it with wide eyes.

              “That opened way easier than I expected,” she stated.

              “No shit,” Margo replied climbing off the bed to check out the damage.  “Probably because it was fucking _locked_ , genius.”

              “Oh.  Well, I guess I should have checked that.  Sorry.  I can-” she wiggled her fingers at the hole, and Margo stepped back.  A second later, the damage was fixed. 

              It wasn’t a particularly impressive divine feat, but whatever.

              “You!” Julia declared once she was done and had spun back to point at Eliot.  He wondered if he should be afraid.  Could Gods smite with a single finger?  Probably.  He didn’t think Julia was the smiting type, but who knew what a Goddess Julia would be like.  And she looked like she could maybe smite.  “What the fuck?”

              “I…” he looked at Margo who made a face and shrugged, clearly having no idea what she was on about either.  “I’m sorry?”

              “You should be.  I mean, I don’t buy for a second that you’re not in love with Q, because I kind of got to experience it firsthand.  And it was _powerful_.  But you told him that you wouldn’t pick him if you had a choice?  That’s just… _mean_.”

              Eliot gaped at her, and felt confused.  But then, he hadn’t been able to forget that conversation, where he had ruined the best thing in his life, and so the words echoed in his mind as though it had happened just yesterday.

              “Oh… _shit_ ,” he breathed out, because this was even worse than he had expected.

              Because Quentin hadn’t just taken his rejection as a rejection, he had taken it as… well, shit. 

              “I told him that _neither_ of us would choose it,” he said, tugging at his hair.  The sharp pain helped to center him, to remind him this was his body, and he was in control, and that meant all of this could be _fixed_.  “I meant it as, why would anyone choose _me_ because I’m a mess and I wouldn’t choose me.  Not that I wouldn’t choose _Q_.”

              He would choose Q.  In every world and every timeline… Eliot truly believed that he would choose Quentin in every world, if it were an option. 

              “You two are complete idiots,” Julia declared after a moment. 

              “They are,” Margo agreed, shaking her head.

              “Okay, so you were possessed, and Q died.  So maybe instead of being idiots about this, the two of you should talk and figure shit out, because you’re not guaranteed another fifty years to fix anything, Eliot.”

              “Quentin told you?” he asked after a moment. 

              “It took some weaseling, but yeah.  He told me.”

              Eliot closed his eyes, tugging his hair again.

              _Know that when I’m braver, it’s ‘cause I learned it from you._  

              Well, fuck.  Julia was right.  He wasn’t guaranteed another fifty years.  Which meant he needed to fix this now.  To be brave.

              To the actual Quentin.

              _Fuck_.

\---

              Quentin wondered if he should have stopped Julia from doing… whatever she had gone to do.  But who knew what the fuck she was doing.

              Goddesses were weird.  Julia was no different.

              Besides, he was really comfortable, curled around his pillow.  He didn’t have anyone to cuddle with these days, but who needed human comfort when there was a pillow to hug?

              “Q!” The door burst open on Eliot using the nickname.  He hesitated for a second, thinking that maybe he should ignore it.  But when had he ever been able to ignore Eliot?

              He turned over, to see Eliot looking ruffled and messy and a little bit panicked and out of breath.  He was in his vests again, but his shirt was half untucked, which was not at all like Eliot.

              “El,” Quentin said, pushing himself onto his elbows.  “Are you okay?  What happened?  What’s wrong?”

              Quentin was already making plans for how to fix whatever had gone wrong.  If there wasn’t a magical solution, he would use brute force.  Eliot had only been back a handful of days, and Quentin would be damned if something happened to him so soon.

              His rambling thought were cut off when Eliot all but leapt onto the bed and pressed his lips against Quentin’s. 

              The first one was a soft kiss.  They’d had kisses like that a hundred times in the life they had led together.  They had kissed like that the first time on the mosaic, when it had been so easy and natural to just lean in.

              It was Quentin who changed the kisses, though.  Who angled his head and pulled Eliot in by the vest.  He turned it hungry and desperate, because how many times had he looked at Eliot and wished he could do just that?  How many times had he looked at The Monster, and seen Eliot’s eyes and smile and wished that he would look at him and call him Q and say that everything would be okay.

              Well, Eliot had called him Q.

              Everything was okay.

              And Eliot had _kissed_  him, opening the dam and leaving Quentin so hungry for more that he thought he could die of oxygen deprivation and it would be okay, as long as it happened because Eliot was kissing him. 

              “Wait… wait…” Quentin tried to pull him in for another kiss, but Eliot gently disentangled them, and held him back.  Quentin prepared for the letdown, because that was what came next, right?  Something about how they weren’t right or –

              “I love you.”

              Quentin gaped.  That couldn’t have been right, could it?  Because hadn’t he pretty much exposed his whole heart to Eliot, only to have it crushed?

              So it couldn’t be right.

              Then again, Eliot had said he loved him _then_ , too.  Just… not the way he needed it.

              “I mean… I am _in_ love with you.  I was when we remembered our lifetime together.  I was probably in love with you even before that. But I was afraid.  And I ran.  I’m really tired of running, Q.”

              Quentin couldn’t stop staring at him.  There was probably something he should do, but he didn’t know what that was.  He was still having trouble figuring out whether or not this was actually all happening.

              “Q… say something.  Even if it’s to tell me to fuck off.  Just-”

              Quentin pulled him in for another kiss.  Hungry and desperate and so damn right; if a kiss could feel like coming home, this was it. 

              “I want to do it.  All of it.  Proof of concept.  I want the stupid fights, and… everything,” Eliot got out between kisses. 

              “Okay,” Quentin agreed.  “Now shut up for a bit.”

              Eliot shut up.

              Quentin kissed him more.

              And then, later, they fell into an exhausted sleep, because emotions were hard and they were both so damn tired.  Neither of them dreamt.

              It was the first time since The Monster had been defeated that neither of them dreamt.


End file.
